Bryan Bishop wrote:> On Saturday 26 April 2008, Paul D. Fernhout wrote:>> So, you have to pay attention to such things.> > Open source exponentially self-replicating machines most definitely, > most absolutely qualifies as 'fair use' no matter how much the scarcity > centrics kick and scream about it.

When the USA was young, it did not honor foreign copyrights or patents.

The British silk industry was by legend started after someone smuggledstolen biotech out of China (silkworms hidden in a hollow cane, on penaltyof death if discovered),http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkworm "The Chinese guarded their knowledge of silk. It is said that a Chinesemonk smuggled silkworms, in a hollow stick, out of China and sold the secretto Europe."

In the same way, the basis of US industry was built on the theft of Britishindustrial trade secrets (again, on penalty of death IIRC). "Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American IndustrialPower."http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/0860"Ben-Atar's penultimate chapter, on the construction of the Americanunderstanding of intellectual property, is interesting. He sees the careerof Thomas Digges, scion of the Maryland elite and international migrant whoturned kleptomaniac and industrial spy, as symbolic of the U.S.'s"Janus-faced approach" (p. 148) towards foreign intellectual propertyrights. For a time even President Washington was minded to sponsortechnology piracy. Economic downturn and business failure in the mid-1790s,associated with textile importations from Britain, dampened the enthusiasmfor copying the British example. Another official deterrent to intellectualpiracy were the Patent Acts of 1790 and 1793 which confined patents towholly novel inventions. Patents for introducing inventions from abroad werenevertheless granted because, apparently, the head of the U.S. PatentOffice, William Thornton, did not insist on applicants swearing the oath ofinternational novelty."

This is the stuff they are not going to cover in most "American History"classes:http://www.historyisaweapon.com/ :-)Especially the ones RIAA designs. :-(http://www.medialoper.com/hot-topics/teaching-kids-about-copyright-laws/"My concern is that programs designed to teach kids about copyright lawsamount to little more than entertainment industry propaganda. Fair Use andthe Right of First sale are routinely left out of copyright discussions, asare the concept and importance of the public domain. ... Now the CanadianCopyright Licensing Agency has launched a new program to educate thechildren of Canada about copyright. Leave it to the Canadians to beatHollywood at their own game by creating a new superhero - Captain Copyright!Captain Copyright briefly acknowledges Fair Use and Public Domain on hiswebsite, but the course material provided to teachers makes almost nomention of these concepts, instead focusing almost exclusively on piracy andother types of copyright violations. ... As Boing Boing points out, CaptainCopyright is apparently a Wikipedia pirate. ..."

So let me muse on your "proposal" but try to imagine addressing it in waysthat won't get anybody behind bars. :-(

First, there is nothing preventing the US Congress tomorrow from abolishingcopyright entirely (except the uproar of rights holders and rights-holderwannabees).http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1050340"The cheap-labor conservative “minimalist government” social Darwinian worldview is just plain bullshit. It builds a new class structure, which justlike the ancient class structures, is based on a set of mythologicalconcepts. In fact, those mythological concepts like “property rights”,“contract rights”, “corporations”, “stocks”, “bonds”, and even “money”itself are socially created to regulate distribution and access toresources. The “market place” is a human creation. The details of how itoperates are determined by the particulars of the institutions on which itis built. It is “instituted among men”, and if its workings becomedestructive of the lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness of people subjectto it, it may be “altered or abolished”."

So in theory, as far as the USA in concerned, this problem is social innature. Of course the laws have been going the other way:http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/CFAleghist.htm"Rather than simply adding computer programs to audiovisual works and soundrecordings as works whose infringement can give rise to felony penalties,the substitute harmonizes the felony provisions in section 2319 to apply toall types of copyrighted works, as is currently the case for misdemeanorviolations. "

There is also nothing to stop Congress tomorrow from making a list of freeand open source licenses and saying by decree they are all compatible andare governed by some common simple rules. That might have more chance ofpassage sooner. :-) And would hopefully at least make our lives as FOSSdevelopers easier IMHO. (Viral provisions like the GPL might not survivethis though.)

Then there is the idea of copying the British and US American examples -- goto (or make :-) a country that does not honor foreign copyrights (or atleast is a lot more permissive). For example, Russia hosts a company thatsells cheap music which claims it is legal under Russian law.

Or the server could literally be in space (a satellites) or internationalwaters or in Antarctica. Of course, without government protection andtreaties. the downside to this is there is nothing to keep the US Air Forcefrom shooting it down or the US Navy from sinking it or US Army from usingit for target practice. :-)

My suggestion if you were serious :-) about copyright violation pursued inan *open* and *transparent* and presumably *legal* way would be to make adeal with, say, Nauru to repudiate the Berne convention and the WorldIntellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty and do the work there:https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/nr.html"Revenues of this tiny island have traditionally come from exports ofphosphates, now significantly depleted. An Australian company in 2005entered into an agreement intended to exploit remaining supplies. Few otherresources exist with most necessities being imported, mainly from Australia,its former occupier and later major source of support. The rehabilitation ofmined land and the replacement of income from phosphates are seriouslong-term problems. In anticipation of the exhaustion of Nauru's phosphatedeposits, substantial amounts of phosphate income were invested in trustfunds to help cushion the transition and provide for Nauru's economicfuture. As a result of heavy spending from the trust funds, the governmentfaces virtual bankruptcy. To cut costs the government has frozen wages andreduced overstaffed public service departments. In 2005, the deteriorationin housing, hospitals, and other capital plant continued, and the cost toAustralia of keeping the government and economy afloat continued to climb.Few comprehensive statistics on the Nauru economy exist, with estimates ofNauru's GDP varying widely."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Workshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization_Copyright_Treatyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_treaties

But remember that you might never be able to set foot in the USA again. :-(Or maybe you could? Lots of things are legal in other countries but not inthe USA and vice versa. Google leadership presumably have no fears travelingthrough Europe even though they, say, routinely violate those labor laws:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_and_employment_law

So, no easy answers if you want to operate publicly and transparently (as Ido, and I heartily recommend, same as walking slowly across an intersectionso people can see you, :-)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042546/quotes"Elwood P. Dowd: Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In thisworld, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world,Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I wassmart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me. "

Again: "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous toconduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in theintroduction of a new order to things." -- Niccolo Machiavelli

So much is possible within the law, and without abandoning the USA (which Ihope after another decade of repression might finally move past it). Asmomentum comes from social forces like Wikipedia, the laws may change forthe better.

Until then: "License management tools: good, bad, or ugly?"http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.misc.discuss/msg/11c0e6a52bc480e1"""In the case of human slavery, laws were changed to make all people free.This may happen with file "slavery" someday but until then we need a wayof keeping the papers of freedom with the free software or free content.This happens now informally. I'm asking, what would happen if weformalize this?"""

But, whether technical solutions might help, it is frustrating to seeprogress towards a resilient infrastructure blocked by outdated dogma,whether about copyrights or even just military posture: :-) "DARPA Progam Manager Position on Self-Replicating technology"http://groups.google.com/group/virgle/msg/64c7c2fb922a4bcf

Ultimately, on Mars or the Moon or the Asteroids there will be new lawsrelating to digital materials. But I would suggest that even there, issuesof attribution and tracking branches and merges would still be of interestbased on "moral rights":http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Photons_Be_Free"Photons Be Free was a holonovel composed by The Doctor on the USS Voyagerin 2377. Its original version was released by Broht & Forrester against theauthor's wishes, sparking a debate on the rights of holograms. The Doctorhad planned to revise the work in order that it not slander Voyager and thecrew."

Or (paraphrased: :-)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/quotes"""Gold Leader: Pardon me for asking, sir, but what good are semantic wikis anddesktops going to be against Virgle?General Dodonna: Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small cgi script on ashared server or desktop to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense.,,,Commander #1: We've analyzed their attack on Knol, sir, and there is adanger. Should I have your Golden Parachute standing by?Governor Schmidt: Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think youoverestimate their chances."""

Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously. :-)

And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored,which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends. :-)

And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not aprofitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves. :-)

From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War"The Art of War is one of the oldest books on military strategy in theworld. It is the first and one of the most successful works on strategy andhas had a huge influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, businesstactics, and beyond. Sun Tzu was the first to recognize the importance ofpositioning in strategy and that position is affected both by objectiveconditions in the physical environment and the subjective opinions ofcompetitive actors in that environment. He taught that strategy was notplanning in the sense of working through a to-do list, but rather that itrequires quickly responding appropriately to changing conditions. Planningworks in a controlled but competitive environment, and competing planscollide, creating situations that no one planned for.... Since at least the 1980s, The Art of War has been applied to fields welloutside the military. Much of the text is about how to fight wars withoutactually having to do battle: it gives tips on how to outsmart one'sopponent so that physical battle is not necessary. As such, it has foundapplication as a training guide for many competitive endeavors that do notinvolve actual combat."

But that is still a little stuck in a military metaphor, which limitsstrategic thinking. :-)

Again. this book has a great paragraph on the difference between celebratingpeacemakers and warriors: "To Become a Human Being: The Message of Tadodaho Chief Leon Shenandoah"http://www.amazon.com/Become-Human-Being-Tadodaho-Shenandoah/dp/1571743413"Warriors are held up as heroes. They are praised for their gallantry,exalted for their conquests, and used as symbols to inspire patriotism.Monuments are built for them as reminders of past victories and to preparecitizens for the next campaign. Leon Shenandoah was no warrior, yet nowarrior could stand up against his power. He carried no weapons, used noharsh rhetoric, and made no demands. His strength was in gentleness. When hespoke, those around him listened. His words were always soft, his kindnessevident. He was a spiritual man."